Survival vs Instinct
by BeeBear-Chick
Summary: Through a series of unforeseen circumstances, a decision must be made between survival and death. Two  enemies taught to hate one another must put aside their differences or otherwise be undone by what war has burned into their minds. By Both.
1. Blue Skies and Sunshine

It had all started as a normal day, just a happy carefree fucking day. Birds were singing, waterfall splashing, and Christian being a dick. I never thought I'd miss the blue sky; it'd always been so plain. The once white puffy clouds were replaced with thick smoke. Black soot swallowed up everything. Flames licked at the forests edge, trees slowly crumbling under the heat. The heavy green armor splashed with red, it had collected soot and dirt. Making awful patterns on my previously clean suit. I tipped my head back until it hit the rock there. Shut my eyes trying to retrace my steps.

It was all gone so fast.

_Three Hours Previous…_

"Matthew! Get up! Command is calling soon!" Christian hollered, he threw a box of crackers at me and with a grumble and a grunt I rolled out of my bed. Stretched out well rested limbs before going back to put on my suit.

"The famous, 'we're only checking on you once a month' call." I mumbled back, after a few minutes my suit was on and in place. Snatched my helmet up from the bottom of my bed and began out of the bunker and across the walkway.

Christian shoved my arm, "It's an important call! Get your helmet on! This is important!"

"It's just a grocery list you know." I felt over my dark green helmet. A zombie sticker resting on the back. Pulled it over my head and latched it into place. Christian ran ahead in a huff going through the teleporter up to the command deck. Or whatever you'd call it. I followed after. Inside the buzzing room was the whole team. Four others not including myself, our leader Jay, our medic Christian, communicator Tim, sniper Bradley, and then there was me. I wasn't really, all that good at any one thing. They just needed one more person on the team. Jay always told me I was a good guard though. Tim said I was on the team because everyone else was boring as fuck.

The big computer screen lit to life. The face of our commander came on screen. Solid as stone, as always. Guy was a hard ass.

"Team Gorge 51, I trust that everything is going well there?"

"Yes commander," Answered Jay, "All defenses are up and running. Perimeter secured with no disturbances all month."

It was the same deal each time. I'd only seen an Elite once, and that was back in training. There had never been even a small disturbance in our little base. Covenant never cared to come here. It was probably because the only thing we had was some weird thing in the basement, information on where to find a key to a different building. How dumb was that? Five people to protect information. We doubled as a look-out for incoming ships as well. Even then, we only saw a Phantom once. It was a load of shit too; we called it in expecting to get some action and waiting to pull the trigger on our dusted guns. Guess what happened? The Phantom was being piloted by Spartans back to base. False alarm. Our existence on the coast was overlooked. We didn't need to be here. We should be out fighting them, being useful.

"Good-bye Commander." The screen went black; I hadn't even noticed the conversation drawing to a close. Probably because, you know, it's the same damn bullshit? Jay turned back to us and began walking out.

"We have to take a stock on the food, if we don't put through the order by tomorrow, then we wont be getting any next shipment." He nodded towards me, "You can patrol the base outside while we're working. Ok?"

"Yessir." I gave a half-hearted salute before grabbing a gun I didn't need, heading outside. Patrol meant walking around in a circle until they were done. I'd personally rather count food. After walking around our small complex twice, I sat back on some sandbags and set down my gun. Tilted my head back to look up at the bright blue sky; puffy white clouds floating by and making absurd shapes. It was a nice day today. Decided what better way to waste it then a nap? So I set a clock inside my helmet and got into a comfortable position. Eyes slid shut and dreamland overcame me.

In those dreams something was wrong though. How dark it was. How depressing. Awoke sometime later to Bradley's voice calling over the helmet's communication device.

"Hey, guys! There's something in the sky! It looks almost like a star, but I don't know."

I forced myself back up to my feet, eyes went up and all I could see was sky. So I walked around to the other side of our base as the others all chimed in.

"It's coming in fast." Bradley said.

"Hey, I don't know if it's a star Brad-" Jay began.

"It's on fire! It's a ship!" Christian interrupted.

"There's a smaller one beside it, a spec, can you see it? Is it ours?" Tim questioned.

Finally I was on the other side of the base. Eyes locked on this ship, red flames sparked up from its hull. Left a dark streak behind it. It was coming in our direction. I focused on it and finally I saw the color of the ship. Deep purple.

"It's Covenant! It's Covenant! Get to your stations!" I shouted into the helmet. I couldn't tell if they were getting to their stations or not. Because the first thing I realized was that my gun was back by the sandbags. I dashed back and ripped it up before going back around. It'd been a little too late though. The ship was on fire, burning out, crashing. It pummeled down and by some odd case of bad luck, barreled into our base. It had all happened so slowly. Yet, so fast? It was hard to piece together. All I knew was it came down and hit us. There was an explosion and I flew back and hit a tree. Had the wind knocked out of me and more. Darkness crept in and I was out. I didn't know how long. When I regained consciousness there was a ringing in my ears and a massive pounding in my skull. Eyes flew back to the base, which was in ruins. The Phantom in pieces, flames melting not only their hull but our once strong standing home. What was once living on the ship was now burning and lying dead. Burning gore. A grunt had been thrown from the side of the ship and impaled on a rock. Its insides slowly crawling down the clean rock. Smoke filled the air, crackles of the fire, otherwise silence. Pushed myself to my feet, holding onto my gun tightly.

"Hello, hello? Can anyone hear me? What happened?" all I got back on my end was static though. No one was picking up. "Hello? Jay? Tim? Hello?"

"Matthew..?" Called Christian back after a few more cries of desperation.

"Hey! Where, where are you? I'm outside, where are you?" I asked, desperate for Christian to be safe. I didn't want to be alone.

"I'm done for…I can't…fuh-find my legs. Ha, ha… I uh-always, thought ya… were-" He cut off, just never finished. I watched more of the rubble left behind collapse before he was cut off. Christian was dead. When the fire calmed down a bit I charged into the safer bits of our base. I couldn't find anyone. The control room was gone, bunker missing a chunk of it, and, most of the base leading down was trashed. There was another way down though. So, I wasn't too concerned. I crawled out through a window to get outside and saw a spec of blue out in the grass. My eyes wouldn't let me see the blood leading to it. All I saw was the blue. Feet crashed over and I fell to my knees. Reached down and lifted up Jay's blue helmet. Jay was still inside. He let out a spurt of blood that fell on my armor. I dropped his head and scrambled away, crawling back to my feet and fleeing. Didn't stop until I reached the outskirts of the woods. There I turned back to watch the flames swallow everything. I pressed up against a boulder and slid down to the ground. I missed the blue sky.


	2. Grave Expectations

Grave expectation

The orbit was going perfectly well until the Ship Master came in.

As we completed our last rotation, the only disturbance blipping on the screen was an outpost along one of the coastal areas. It was unimportant and immediately ignored. We were going to head farther inland before landing when the ship master stumbled in. As of late his appearances on deck were far and few and we thought nothing of his lack of presence. The doors slid open and he stumbled in and all our eyes were on him. I took off my head gear and placed it in my lap, slightly bowing my head as did the other soldiers in respect for our commander.

A sort of…gurgling groan erupted from his throat, coming with it a cloud of what looked like rot. Infected with flood. A spore that must've gone undetected in our last encounter with the fell thing. I swung around the side of my seat, grabbing for a plasma pistol. He was already on my squad leader and chewing his throat out. The other Sangheili seemed to be moving slow as possible, the techs that kept the ship afloat fleeing with their little experience in fighting, and the other soldiers along with myself stood our ground. The leader was down but he'd be rising quick. I let out a few pulses of plasma, winding the ship master and covering our retreat. Each room on the ship was outfitted with a Flood failsafe. Flares to torch the inside once the clean and living were out.

I was shoved to the back as the team filtered out the door and insured that it was locked airtight. But I guess Ghalri didn't check thoroughly enough. He pressed the button on the outside panel and we listened to the room fill with flame…and slowly filter out the doors until the pressure deck finally gave way and exploded. A failure of a failsafe, I and a team of two fled deeper into the hull that began burning. We lost two in the fire and were forced into the hold below. How we missed the infection was a mystery.

Fleshy webbing was gracefully laced all around the transports and to the walls. An obvious nesting sign left by whatever sort of flood creature had evolved in our hold. We tried to torch the nearly living nest it had made, a small cluster of spores frantically raced around the floor and either exploded from our assault or escaped through our legs. I gave way and chased the small cluster that fled. I heard one of my team shout out in pain as the spore crawled deftly around his head. We had no time.

The fire had spread further into the hull, I pressed against the wall to try and avoid the flame. My only chance was the escape pods. Red alerts whined loudly down every hall and lights blinked out the warning. I'm not sure how many were left alive to head it but I do know that I finished off the Ship Master as he lumbered and writhed down the hall. His body was swollen and pulsing with the plague. I blew his head off just to be safe.

I mashed buttons frantically before the portal doors slid open and I crawled into the descent pod. They closed behind me and I kept my body straight as the security belts wrapped around my waist. I heard a side of the hull finally give way and explode, rocking the whole ship and rattling my pod loose. I tightened my grip on the little bars at my side before typing in the release code and clinging. I felt the pod detach and the boosters fired up. The descent down was rough, I deployed friction cushions and the descent wings to try and slow down but it didn't do much good. A few warnings beeped out and I braced for impact as the pod crushed head first into the ground below.

Far off, something exploded. I crawled out and watched the flaming pieces rain down from the sky and sprinkle in the thick foliage around me. The sky overhead was cloudy and dark with smoke and soot. I held my head and sat up in the darkness. My ship was gone. My team was gone. And I was left alone in this jungle of some throwback planet without a weapon other than my plasma pistol and a carbine rifle. I re-secured my head piece and got to my feet.

There would be time to grieve, yes, but a body can only last so long without food and water. And if I was going to survive, I would need to get to it now. I looked back and squinted through the foliage, surveying what I could see of the wreckage. Perhaps what was left of the wreck could be salvaged. And there looked to be something underneath the wreckage of my ship. Something that kept the fires burning…


	3. Return for the Dead

The fires had died down after a few hours. I didn't really care at this point, well, not much anyway. I'd moved to a little hideout in a cave, where our second entrance was. We were raised into this fight, raised to be used to blood and guts and gore and-and death… Hell, I wasn't. I spent the last few years perfecting my golf swing, not getting ready to watch my friends die! This was the reality of our-my situation though. Death happens, you move on. I sighed heavily.

I'll still bury them.

I just have to get the bodies.

My eyes glanced to the entrance leading into our base. The fires had finally gone out. There shouldn't be much danger anymore, right? So I turned and walked in with my rifle strapped to my back. Flicked on my light and hoped I could salvage something. Anything. Truthfully I was only looking for my friends though.

The tunnel leading down was in the same condition it always was until I got close to our 'front door'. Edges had gathered black soot, metal hadn't burned though. The doorway leading into the base was a crumpled heap. Cement had fallen and bent it down and onto the floor. The ceiling itself looked about to cave, but my confidence in the solid structure kept me moving forward. The first place I went to was the supply room. The one that had food and not a mindlessly excessive amount of bullets stacked up to the ceiling. Beside the entrance was a collapse, as I drew closer it rumbled a bit. So I tried to stay clear of it. Went into the supply room, the left wall was rubble in the corner. It left an open space into another hallway. Still had a few salvageable boxes scattered around. I made a mental note of it for later.

They'd been in this room at first. Someone still had to be nearby.

I went to the hole leading out to the hallway. Looked down and spotted a bit of red. Felt my stomach flop, followed it with my eyes back to Christian's yellow hand. Grasping for freedom, and now frozen in death. I went over to him and took some rocks that didn't look like they'd cause a cave-in and placed them on top of his hand. Bowed my head and uttered a prayer to whatever god was listening. Stood up and kept going down the hallway.

Lights still buzzed overhead. Flickering on and off and giving off sparks of electricity. At least the generator's lines hadn't been cut. Generator itself was so far underground I doubted it'd ever be in trouble. I briefly wondered about the water supply and if it had been contaminated or destroyed. It was a level below me, so it was hard to tell. Right now I wasn't very concerned with the basic needs of survival; I needed to find any remains of my friends that I could. It was a grim task. But, well, I couldn't just let them forever be in the back of my mind could I? Sitting there and making me question if they really are dead. No, I couldn't. I had to find them. See them for my own eyes. Get some sort of closure.

I'm a terrible Spartan.

I duck down into an entrance and everything is pitch black. My light only shines so far. It was the medical wing at some point. Now most is in pieces. Fallen apart. With another step into the room I can feel the walls shake. This was right below the crash I think. If I'm right it's probably the most dangerous place to be right now. The supplies inside though would be useful later though. Tim could be in here. Bradley. The rest of Jay.

The prospect of Jay's body being anywhere inside the building was slim, his head was outside. But the other two, they could be here. I take another step forward. Bad idea when you weigh half a ton. The building shakes and the ceiling starts to cave in. There's light coming down into the dark along with enough steel, cement, and miscellaneous heavy shit to crush a Spartan. I turn and run. The door though! I have to duck and I can't do it in time. _I couldn't duck in time_. The rest of my body gets out through the safe hole but my left arm gets caught.

The rocks come down and cover it, nailing it down and more fucking rocks pile on top. The armor is easily destroyed, going through the gel and piercing my arm. Blood comes out the little hole where my arm is and I can hear myself screaming something awful. I struggle and pull back but the rocks won't give my arm up easy. One side of my armor meets the other side. I stop feeling that arm. It's gone.

It's gone.

It's fucking _gone._

After a few more minutes of freaking out, I make a choice. Took out my Standard Spartan Army Knife, and started cutting. I couldn't free myself from the rocks, knew I didn't want to wind up like Christian, so what better choice did I have? It was grueling, knife really only being used to rip the bits of armor off my shoulder and cut the gel layer. Eventually found I still had a bit of bone attached to more bone in the crevice, so I took a deep breath and did a stupid thing. Bent my whole body and snapped the bone off. It split up and I screamed again. I wasn't a doctor, but I knew that wasn't the right choice as soon as I looked at it and saw all the disgusting bone fragments poking up and digging into my flesh. Used the wall to push myself up, began walking out with my right hand covering the bleeding stump attached to my shoulder.

Passed Christian and thought I heard him scolding me for being so foolish. For not being a good Spartan.

For coming down here and looking for the dead.

I hang my head and finally reached the long hallway leading back to the cave. Blood dripping onto the floor. I leaned against the wall, how much blood had I lost? How much more could I lose? Already I was feeling light headed. I was the only survivor and I was going to die because I was an idiot. Fitting end, right?

Here I hoped I'd die in a golfing accident. Nope. Dying from blood loss. How fun was that?

I stumbled into the cave and decided I might as well go outside to see my dying moments. Stare at the sky and wait for sweet slumber to overtake me. I walked out of the darkness into the light and fell to my knees. Slumped onto my back and stared at the sky through my visor. The clouds were still thick with smoke. Swirling in the air. Now at least you could see the blue behind it. So faint, rather purple even.

My shoulder went numb. I felt better then. Things started getting fuzzy. The light was blocked out of my view. Darkness overcame my vision and I thought I was dead. Up above me though were these golden eyes. Little slits lighting up the darkness. I shut my eyes and was out. No more worries. No more pains.

Sweet Oblivion.


End file.
